DRUIDS

DRUIDS, DRUIDES, or DRUIDÆ, the priests or ministers of religion amongst the ancient Cæltæ or Gauls, the Britons, and the Germans.

Some authors derive the word from the Hebrew דרוש, derussim, or drussim, which they translate contemplators. Picard (Celtopæd. lib. ii. p. 55) believes the druids to have been thus called from Druis or Dryius, their leader, the fourth or fifth king of the Gauls, and father of Saron or Naumes. Pliny, Salmasius, Vigenère, and others, derive the name from δρυς, quercus, oak, on account of their inhabiting, or at least frequenting and teaching, in forests; or perhaps because, as Pliny says, they never sacrificed except under the oak. But it is hard to imagine how the druids should have come to speak Greek, even although Cæsar assures us that they had the Greek letters. Ménage derived the word from the old British drus, a dæmon or magician; and Borel, from the Saxon dry, a magician, or rather from the old British dru or derw, an oak; whence he supposes δρυς to be derived, which indeed is not an improbable supposition. Becanus (lib. i.) takes druis to be an old Celtic and German word, formed from trouis or truwis, a doctor of the truth and the faith; and in this etymology Vossius is disposed to acquiesce.

The druids were the first and most distinguished order General among the Gauls and Britons. They were chosen out of account of the best families; and the honours of their birth, joined the druids. with those of their function, procured them the highest veneration among the people. They were conversant in astrology, geometry, natural philosophy, politics, and geography: they were the interpreters of religion, and the judges in secular affairs: whoever refused obedience to them was declared impious and accursed. We know but little as to their peculiar doctrines, only that they believed the immortality of the soul, and, as is generally supposed, in the metempsychosis; though it appears highly probable that they did not believe in this last doctrine, at least not in the sense of the Pythagoreans.

The chief settlement of the druids in Britain was in the isle of Anglesey, the ancient Mona, which they chose for this purpose, as it was well stored with spacious groves of their favourite oak. They were divided into several classes or branches, namely, the vacerri, bardi, eubages, symnothii or semnothei, and saronida. The vacerri are held to have been the priests; the bardi were the poets; the eubages were the augurs; and the saronida were the civil judges and instructors of youth. As to the semnothei, who are said to have been immediately devoted to the service of religion, it is probable that they were the same with the vacerri. Strabo, however, and Picard after him in his Celtopædia, do not comprehend all these different orders under the denomination of Druids, as species under their genus, or parts under the whole, but make them quite different conditions or orders. Strabo in effect only distin-

Druids. guishes three kinds, bardi, vates, and druids. The bardi were the poets; the vates, warus, apparently the same with the vacceri, were the priests and naturalists; and the druids were those who, besides the study of nature, applied themselves to that of morality.

Diogenes Laertius assures us in his prologue, that the druids were the same among the ancient Britons with the sophi or philosophers among the Greeks, the magi among the Persians, the gymnosophists among the Indians, and the Chaldeans among the Assyrians.

Their garments were remarkably long; and, when employed in religious ceremonies, they always wore a white surplice. They generally carried a wand in their hands; and wore a kind of ornament encased in gold about their necks, called the druid's egg. Their necks were likewise decorated with gold chains, and their hands and arms ornamented with bracelets. They wore their hair very short, and their beards remarkably long.

The druids had one chief or arch-druid in every nation, who acted as high priest, or pontifex maximus. He possessed absolute authority over the rest, and commanded, decreed, or punished, at pleasure. At his death he was succeeded by the most considerable amongst the survivors; and if there were several pretenders, the matter was ended by an election, or else put to the decision of arms.

The druids, we have observed, were in the highest esteem. They presided at sacrifices and other ceremonies, and had the direction of every thing relating to religion. The British and Gallic youth flocked to them in crowds to be instructed by them. With the children of the nobility, Mela tells us, they retired into caves, or the most desolate parts of forests, and kept them there sometimes for twenty years under their discipline. Besides the immortality and metempsychosis, their disciples were here instructed in the motion of the heavens and the course of the stars, the magnitude of the heavens and the earth, the nature of things, the power and wisdom of the gods, and a variety of other doctrines. They preserved the memory and actions of great men in their verses, which they never allowed to be written down, but made their pupils get by heart. In their common course of learning, they are said to have taught them twenty-four thousand such verses. By this means their doctrines appeared more mysterious by being unknown to all but themselves; and having no books to recur to, they were the more careful to fix these doctrines in their memory.

They worshipped the Supreme Being under the name of Esus or Hesus, and the symbol of the oak; and had no other temple than a wood or a grove, where all their religious rites were performed. Nor was any person admitted to enter that sacred recess, unless he carried with him a chain, in token of his absolute dependence on the Deity. Indeed their whole religion originally consisted in acknowledging that the Supreme Being, who made his abode in these sacred groves, governed the universe, and that every creature ought to obey his laws and pay him divine homage.

They considered the oak as the emblem, or rather the peculiar residence, of the Almighty; and accordingly chaplets of it were worn both by the druids and the people in their religious ceremonies, whilst the altars were strewed with its leaves and encircled with its branches. The fruit of it, especially the misletoe, was thought to contain a divine virtue, and to be the peculiar gift of heaven. It was therefore sought for on the sixth day of the moon

with the greatest earnestness and anxiety, and when found it was hailed with raptures of joy. As soon as the druids were informed of this fortunate discovery, they prepared every thing for the sacrifice under the oak, to which they fastened two white bulls by the horns; then the arch-druid, attended by a prodigious number of people, ascended the tree, dressed in white, and, with a consecrated golden knife or pruning-hook, cropped the misletoe, which he received in his sagum or robe, amidst the rapturous exclamations of the people. Having secured this sacred plant, he descended the tree; the bulls were sacrificed; and the Deity invoked to bless his own gift, and render it efficacious in those distempers in which it should be administered.

The consecrated groves, in which they performed their religious rites, were fenced round with stones, to prevent any person's entering between the trees, except through the passages left open for that purpose, and which were guarded by some inferior druids, to prevent any stranger from intruding into their mysteries. These groves were of different forms; some quite circular, others oblong, and more or less capacious as the votaries in the districts to which they belonged were more or less numerous. The area in the centre of the grove was encompassed with several rows of large oaks set very close together. Within this large circle were several smaller ones surrounded with large stones; and near the centre of these smaller circles were stones of a prodigious size and convenient height, on which the victims were slain and offered. Each of these being a kind of altar, was surrounded with another row of stones, the use of which cannot now be known, unless they were intended as cinctures to keep the people at a convenient distance from the officiating priest.

Suetonius, in his life of Claudius, assures us that the druids sacrificed men; and Mercury is said to have been the god to whom they offered these victims. Diodorus Siculus observes, that it was only upon extraordinary occasions they made such offerings; as, to consult what measures to take, or to learn what should happen to them, by the fall of the victim, the tearing of his members, and the manner in which his blood gushed out. Augustus condemned the custom, and Tiberius and Claudius punished and abolished it.

We learn from Cæsar that the druids were the judges and arbiters of all differences and disputes, both public and private; they took cognizance of murders, inheritances, boundaries, and limits, and decreed rewards and punishments. Such as disobeyed their decisions they excommunicated, which was their principal punishment; the criminal being thereby excluded from all public assemblies, and avoided by all the world, so that nobody durst speak to him, for fear of being polluted.¹ Strabo observes they had sometimes interest and authority enough to stop armies upon the point of engaging, and accommodate their differences.

It has been disputed whether the druids were themselves the inventors of their opinions and systems of religion and philosophy, or received them from others. Some have imagined that the colony of Phocians which left Greece and built Marseilles in Gaul about the 57th olympiad, imported the first principles of learning and philosophy, and communicated them to the Gauls and other nations in the west of Europe. It appears indeed that this famous colony contributed not a little to the improvement of that part of Gaul where it settled, and to the civilization of its inhabitants. "The Greek colony of Marseilles,"

Druid. says Justin, "civilized the Gauls, and taught them to live under laws; to build cities, and enclose them with walls; to raise corn; to cultivate the vine and olive; and, in a word, made so great a change both in the face of the country and the manners of its inhabitants, that Gaul seemed to be translated into Greece, rather than a few Greeks transplanted into Gaul." But though we may allow that the druids of Gaul and Britain borrowed some hints and embellishments of their philosophy from this Greek colony, and perhaps from other quarters, there is some reason to believe that the substance of it was their own. Others have suggested that the druids derived their philosophy from Pythagoras, who published his doctrines at Crotona in Italy, where he lived above twenty years, in the highest reputation for his virtue, wisdom, and learning. This conjecture seems to be confirmed by the remarkable expression of Ammianus Marcellinus, "That the druids were formed into fraternities, as the authority of Pythagoras decreed." It has also been observed, that the philosophy of the druids bore a much greater resemblance to that of Pythagoras than to that of any of the other sages of antiquity. But it seems probable that Ammianus meant no more by the above expression than to illustrate the nature of the druidical fraternities, by comparing them to those of the Pythagoreans, which were well known to the Romans; and the resemblance between the Pythagorean and druidical philosophy may perhaps be best accounted for, by supposing that Pythagoras learned and adopted some of the opinions of the druids, as well as imparted to them some of his discoveries, or that both were derived from a common source. It is well known that this philosopher, animated by the most ardent love of knowledge, travelled into many countries in pursuit of it, and got himself admitted into every society that was famous for its learning. It is therefore highly probable in itself, as well as directly asserted by several authors, that Pythagoras heard the druids of Gaul, and was initiated into their philosophy.

Looking at the druids. From the concurring testimonies of several authors, it appears that physiology or natural philosophy was the favourite study of the druids of Gaul and Britain. Cicero tells us that he was personally acquainted with one of the Gaulish druids, Divitius the Aduan, a man of quality in his own country, who professed to have a thorough knowledge of the laws of nature, or of that science which the Greeks called physics or physiology. According to Diogenes Siculus, Strabo, Cæsar, Mela, Ammianus Marcellinus, and others, they entered into many disquisitions and disputations in their schools, concerning the form and magnitude of the universe in general, and of this earth in particular, and even concerning the most sublime and hidden secrets of nature. On these and similar subjects they formed a variety of systems and hypotheses, which they delivered to their disciples in verse, that the latter might the more easily retain them in their memories, since they were not allowed to commit them to writing. Strabo has preserved one of the physiological opinions of the druids concerning the universe, viz. that it was never to be entirely destroyed or annihilated, but was to undergo a succession of great changes and revolutions, which were to be produced sometimes by the power and predominacy of water, and sometimes by that of fire. This opinion, he intimates, was not peculiar to them, but was entertained also by the philosophers of other nations; and Cicero speaks of it as a truth universally acknowledged and undeniable. "It is impossible for us," says he, "to attain a glory that is eternal, or even of very long duration, on account of those deluges and conflagrations of the earth, which must necessarily happen at certain periods." This opinion, which was entertained by the most ancient phi-

losophers of many different and very distant nations, was probably neither the result of rational inquiry in all these nations, nor communicated from one of them to others, but descended to them all from their common ancestors of the family of Noah by tradition, though corrupted and misunderstood through length of time. The agreement of the druids with the philosophers of so many other nations in this opinion about the alternate dissolution and renovation of the world, gives us reason to believe that they agreed with them also in their opinion of its origin from two distinct principles: the one intelligent and omnipotent, which was God; the other inanimate and inactive, which was matter. We are told by Cæsar that they had many disquisitions about the power of God; and, no doubt, amongst other particulars, about his creative power. But whether they believed with some that matter was eternal, or with others that it was created, and in what manner they endeavoured to account for the disposition of it into the present form of the universe, we are entirely ignorant, though they certainly had their speculations on these subjects. We are only informed that they did not express their sentiments on these and similar heads in a plain and natural, but in a dark, figurative, and enigmatical manner. This might incline us to suspect that Pythagoras had borrowed from them his doctrines about numbers, to the mystical energy of which he ascribes the formation of all things; for nothing can be more dark and enigmatical than that doctrine. The druids disputed likewise about the magnitude and form of the world in general, and of the earth in particular, of which things they pretended to have a perfect knowledge. We know not what their opinions were about the dimensions of the universe or of the earth, but there is reason to think that they believed both to be of a spherical form. This is visibly the shape and form of the sun, moon, and stars, the most conspicuous parts of the universe; and hence it was natural and easy to infer that such was also the form of the world and of the earth. Accordingly this seems to have been the opinion of the philosophers of all nations; and the circle was the favourite figure of the druids, as appears from the form both of their houses and places of worship. Besides these general speculations about the origin, dissolution, magnitude, and form of the world and of the earth, the druids engaged in particular inquiries into the natures and properties of the different kinds of substances. But all their discoveries in this most useful and extensive branch of natural philosophy, whatever they were, have been entirely lost.

Astronomy also appears to have been one of the chief studies of the druids of Gaul and Britain. "The druids," says Cæsar, "have many disquisitions concerning the heavenly bodies and their motions, in which they instruct their disciples." Mela, speaking of the same philosophers, observes, "that they profess to have great knowledge of the motions of the heavens and of the stars." Some knowledge of this science indeed was not only necessary for measuring time in general, marking the duration of the different seasons, regulating the operations of the husbandman, directing the course of the mariner, and for many other purposes in civil life; but it was especially necessary for fixing the times and regular returns of their religious solemnities, of which the druids had the sole direction. Some of these solemnities were monthly, and others annual. It was therefore necessary for them to know, with some tolerable degree of exactness, the number of days in which the sun and moon performed their revolutions, that these solemnities might be observed at their proper seasons. This was the more essential, as some of these solemnities were attended by persons from different and very distant countries, who were all to meet at one place

Druids. on one day, and who must have had some rule to discover the annual return of that day.

Their method of computing time. The most perceptible division of time by means of the two great luminaries is into day and night; the former occasioned by the presence of the sun above the horizon, the latter by his absence, which is in some measure supplied by the moon and stars. The druids computed their time by nights, and not by days; a custom which they had received by tradition from their most remote ancestors, and in which they were confirmed by measuring their time very much by the motions of the moon, the mistress and the queen of night. As the changes in the aspect of that luminary are most conspicuous, they engaged the attention of the most ancient astronomers of all countries, and particularly of the druids, who regulated all their great solemnities, both sacred and civil, by the age and aspect of the moon. "When no unexpected accident prevents it, they assemble upon stated days, either at the time of the new or full moon; for they believe these to be the most auspicious times for transacting all affairs of importance." Their most august ceremony, that of cutting the mistletoe from the oak by the archdruid, was always performed on the sixth day of the moon. Nay, they even regulated their military operations by this luminary, and avoided, as much as possible, to engage in battle whilst the moon was on the wane. As the attention of the druids was so much fixed on this planet, it could not be very long before they discovered that she passed through all her various aspects in about thirty days; and by more accurate observations, they would gradually find, that the real time of her performing an entire revolution was very nearly twenty-nine and a half days. This would furnish them with the division of their time into months, or revolutions of the moon; of which we know with certainty they were possessed. But this period, though of great use, was evidently too short for many purposes, and particularly for measuring the seasons; which, they could not fail to perceive, depended on the influences of the sun. By continued observation they discovered that about twelve revolutions of the moon included all the variety of seasons, which began again and revolved every twelve months. This suggested to them that larger division of time called a year, consisting of twelve lunations or three hundred and fifty-four days, which was the most ancient measure of the year in almost all nations. That this was for some time at least the length of the druidical year, is both probable in itself, and apparent from the expression of Pliny, that "they began both their months and years, not from the change, but from the sixth day of the moon;" which is a demonstration that their years consisted of a certain number of lunar revolutions, as they always commenced on the same day of the moon. But as this year of twelve lunar months falls eleven days and nearly one fourth of a day short of a real revolution of the sun, this error would soon be perceived, and call for reformation; though we are not informed of the particular manner in which it was rectified. Various arguments might be collected to render it very probable that the Britons were acquainted with a year exact enough for every purpose of life when they were first invaded by the Romans; but it will be sufficient to mention one, which is taken from the time and circumstances of that invasion. The learned Dr. Halley has demonstrated that Cæsar arrived in Britain, in his first year's expedition, on the 26th day of August; and Cæsar himself informs us, that at his arrival the harvest was finished, except in one field, which by some means or other was more backward than the rest of the country. This is a proof that the British husbandmen knew and used the most proper seasons for ploughing, sowing, and reaping. The druids, as we are told by Pliny,

had also a cycle or period of thirty years, which they called an age, and which likewise commenced on the sixth day of the moon; but that author has not acquainted us on what principle this cycle was formed, nor to what purpose it was applied. We can hardly suppose that this was the cycle of the sun, which consists of twenty-eight years, and regulates the dominical letters. It is more probable, that whilst the druids made use of the year of twelve lunar months, and had not invented a method of adjusting it to the real revolution of the sun, they observed that the beginning of this year had passed through all the seasons, and returned to the point whence it set out, in a course of about thirty-three years; which they might therefore denominate an age. Others may perhaps be of opinion that this thirty years cycle of the druids is the same with the great year of the Pythagoreans, or a revolution of Saturn. Some have imagined that the druids were also acquainted with the cycle of nineteen years, which is commonly called the cycle of the moon. But the evidence of this depends entirely on the truth of that supposition, that the Hyperborean island, which is described by Diodorus Siculus, was Britain, or some of the British isles. Amongst many surprising things, that author states, concerning the Hyperborean island, that "its inhabitants believed that Apollo descended into their island at the end of every nineteen years; in which period of time the sun and moon, having performed their various revolutions, return to the same point, and begin to repeat the same revolutions. This is called by the Greeks the great year, or the cycle of Meton."

We are told both by Cæsar and Mela, that the druids studied the stars as well as the sun and moon; and that they professed to know, and taught their disciples, many things concerning the motions of these heavenly bodies. From these testimonies we may conclude that the druids were acquainted with the planets, distinguished them from the fixed stars, and carefully observed their motions and revolutions. If this discovery was the result of their own observations, it would be gradual, and it would be a long time before they found out all the planets. They might perhaps have received assistance and information from Pythagoras, or from some other quarter. But whether this discovery of the planets was their own, or communicated to them by others, it is highly probable that they were acquainted with the precise number of these wandering stars. Dio Cassius says, that the custom of giving the name of one of the planets to each of the seven days of the week was an invention of the Egyptians, and from them was gradually communicated to all the other nations of the world; and that in his time this custom was so firmly established, not only among the Romans, but among all the rest of mankind, that in every country it appeared to be a native institution. The knowledge of the planets, and perhaps the custom of giving their names to the days of the week, was brought out of Egypt into Italy by Pythagoras, more than five hundred years before the beginning of the Christian era; and from thence it could not be very long before it reached Gaul and Britain. But though we have little or no reason to doubt that the druids knew the number and observed the motion of the planets, yet it may be questioned whether they had discovered the times in which these bodies performed their several revolutions. Some of the planets, as Jupiter and Saturn, take so great a number of years in revolving, that it required a very extraordinary degree of patience and attention to discover the precise periods of their revolutions. If we could be certain that the island in which the ancients imagined Saturn lay asleep was one of the British isles, as Plutarch intimates it was, we might be inclined to think that the British druids were not ignorant of the length of the period

in which the planet Saturn performs a revolution; for that same author, in another treatise, tells us, that "the inhabitants of that island kept every thirtieth year a solemn festival in honour of Saturn, when his star entered into the sign of Taurus." If we could depend upon this testimony, we should have one positive proof that the druids of the British isles were acquainted with the constellations, and even with the signs of the zodiac; and that they measured the revolutions of the sun and planets, by observing the length of time between their departure from and return to one of these signs. But history supplies no direct evidence that this was really the case. The druids of Gaul and Britain, indeed, as well as the ancient philosophers of other countries, had a general plan or system of the universe, and of the disposition and arrangement of its various parts, in which they instructed their disciples. This is both probable in itself, and is plainly intimated by several authors of the greatest authority. But we cannot be certain whether this druidical system of the world was of their own invention, or was borrowed from others. If it was borrowed, it was most probably from the Pythagoreans, to whom they were the nearest neighbours, and with whom they had the greatest intercourse; or at all events from some oriental sect, order, or caste, of which many are of opinion that they originally sprung.

It has been imagined that the druids had instruments of some kind or other, which answered the same purposes as our telescopes, in making observations on the heavenly bodies. The only foundation of this very improbable conjecture is an expression of Diodorus Siculus, in his description of the famous Hyperborean island. "They say further, that the moon is seen from that island, as if she were but at a little distance from the earth, and having hills or mountains like ours on the surface." But no such inference can be reasonably drawn from this expression, which in reality merits little more regard than that which, according to Strabo, was said of some of the inhabitants of Spain, that "they heard the hissing noise of the sun every evening when he fell into the western ocean."

The application of the druids to the study of philosophy and astronomy amounts almost to a demonstration that they applied also to the study of arithmetic and geometry; for some knowledge of both these sciences is indispensably necessary to the natural philosopher and astronomer, as well as of great and daily use in the common affairs of life. If we were certain that Abaris, the famous Hyperborean philosopher, the friend and scholar of Pythagoras, was really a British druid, as some have imagined, we should be able to produce direct historical evidence of their arithmetical knowledge. For Iamblicus, in the life of Pythagoras, says, that "he taught Abaris to find out all truth by the science of arithmetic." It may be thought improbable that the druids had made any considerable progress in arithmetic, as this may seem to have been impossible by the mere strength of memory, without the assistance of figures and of written rules. But it is very difficult to ascertain what may be done by memory alone, when it has been long exercised in this way. We have had examples of persons who could perform some of the most tedious and difficult operations in arithmetic by the mere strength of memory. The want of written rules could be no great disadvantage to the druids, as the precepts of this, as well as of the other sciences, were couched in verse, which would be easily got by heart and long remembered. Though the druids were unacquainted with the Arabic numeral characters, which are now in use, we have no reason to suppose that they were destitute of marks or characters of another kind, which, in some measure, answered the same purposes, both in making and re-

cording their calculations. In particular, it is believed that they made use of the letters of the Greek alphabet for both these purposes. This seems to be pretty distinctly intimated by Cæsar, who, in speaking of the druids of Gaul, observes, that "in almost all other public transactions and private accounts or computations, they make use of the Greek letters." And this is further confirmed by what he says of the Helvetii, a people of the same origin, language, and manners, with the Gauls and Britons. "Tables were found in the camp of the Helvetii written in Greek letters, containing an account of all the men capable of bearing arms who had left their native country, and also separate accounts of the boys, old men, and women." There is historical evidence of the druids being also well acquainted with geometry. "When any disputes arise," says Cæsar, "about their inheritances, or any controversies about the limits of their fields, they are entirely referred to the decision of their druids." But besides the knowledge of mensuration which this implies, both Cæsar and Mela plainly intimate that the druids were conversant in the most sublime speculations of geometry: "in measuring the magnitude of the earth, and even of the world."

There are still many monuments remaining in Britain and the adjacent isles, which cannot so reasonably be ascribed to any race as to that of the ancient Britons, and which lead us to think that they had made great progress in this department of knowledge, and could apply the mechanical powers so as to produce very astonishing effects. As these monuments appear to have been designed for religious purposes, we may be certain that they were erected under the direction of the druids. Many obelisks or pillars, of one rough unpolished stone each, are still to be seen in Britain and its isles. Some of these pillars are both very thick and lofty, erected on the summits of barrows and of mountains; and some of them, as at Stonehenge, have ponderous blocks of stone raised aloft, and resting on the tops of the upright pillars. We can hardly suppose that it was possible to cut these prodigious masses of stone, some of them above forty tons in weight, without wedges, or to raise them out of the quarry without levers. But it certainly required still greater knowledge of the mechanical powers, and of the method of applying them, to transport those huge stones from the quarry to the places of their destination; to erect the perpendicular pillars, and to elevate the imposts to the tops of these pillars. If the prodigious stone in the parish of Constantine, Cornwall, was really removed by art from its original place, and fixed where it now stands, it is a demonstration that the druids could perform the most astonishing feats by their skill in mechanics. That the British druids were acquainted with the principles and use of the balance, we have reason to believe, not only from the great antiquity of that discovery in other parts of the world, but also from some druidical monuments which are still remaining in this island. These monuments are called logan stones, or rocking stones, and each of them consists of one prodigious block of stone, resting upon an upright stone or rock, and so equally balanced, that a very small force, sometimes even that of a child, can move it up and down, though hardly any force is sufficient to remove it from its station. Some of these stones may have fallen into this position by accident, but others of them evidently appear to have been placed in it by art. That the ancient Britons understood the construction and use of wheels, the great number of their war-chariots and other wheel carriages is a sufficient proof; and that they knew how to combine them together with the other mechanical powers, so as to form machines capable of raising and transporting very heavy weights, we have good rea-